


working from home

by ybrows



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Office, Boss/Employee Relationship, Coronavirus, Drinking, First Meetings, Lockdown 2020, M/M, Past Gwen/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Texting, Uther is a tory, WIP, Zoom calls
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-18 20:08:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29988183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ybrows/pseuds/ybrows
Summary: First, he lost his office. Then, he lost his routine. Finally, he thinks, pausing his erratic pacing to glare at the Zoom link Lance sent over twenty minutes ago, he’s lost his mind.A Covid-19, Modern AU. When workaholic Arthur meets Merlin during a Saturday night Zoom call, he doesn't expect to find the bane of his lockdown existence, a new assistant and the love of his life all in one ukulele-playing, amateur knitting, part-time magician. 2020 just keeps it coming.
Relationships: Gwen/Lancelot (Merlin), Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 45





	working from home

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first fanfic I have written for a while, but there's not much else to do at the moment, eh? Warning for mentions of Boris Johnson and his gaggle of gits (and warning for a lot of British references, as you might be able to tell already) ! I may also update the title when I can think of something a lil more original later on !

Arthur lives alone.

With his refined way of doing things – ironed bedsheets, a stalwart rule against eating anywhere but the dining table – it’s a necessary evil.

He’s in the rare position of being able to do so at twenty-five years of age, so he’s told by Gwen and Gwaine whenever the subject of house prices and privilege is broached. He sits back and lets them talk, not feeling like it’s his place to intervene, whilst lamenting the fact that, whilst their beds are crammed into twelve-person house shares, at least they’re getting shagged in them.

Uther Pendragon (father, boss, prick) purchased the apartment during his son’s second year at Imperial College London. Though the interior is decorated with the bare minimum and not nearly as lavish as the price would suggest, the location is the height of prime real estate. Chelsea-based; a two-minute walk from Ranelagh gardens, three minutes from a quieter part of the Thames, and — when he was still a young man seeking a first-class honours — a thirty-minute walk from the Business School.

He’s a forty-minute tube from work, now. Camelot Group headquarters and all its subsidiaries are housed in a seventy-floor skyscraper, sheathed in blue-grey glass and an air of superiority. It’s been four months since Arthur has stepped foot in CG HQ. Since he rode the elevator to his office, dodged a conversation with his disastrously dull PA George, and watched the cogs of the capital turn from his mahogany desk like a corporate God of Olympus.

First, he lost his office. Then, he lost his routine. Finally, he thinks, pausing his erratic pacing to glare at the Zoom link Lance sent over twenty minutes ago, he’s lost his mind.

He clicks join. The preview of his webcam pops into frame, and he balks at his appearance. This is a casual, Saturday-night ‘banter’ for Christ’s sake, yet he appears to be ready for a nine-am meeting. Hair slicked back; top button secured into place. Hell, even his background — a wall of books he’s never had the time nor inclination to read — presents the picture of a politician about to address his country rather than a young lad getting ready for a virtual piss-up.

His phone pings.

> **Gwen [20:34]:** are you coming? gwaine is about to set up a jackbox game!

What the living fuck is a ‘jackbox game’?

> **Arthur [20:34]:** What is a Jack box game?
> 
> **Arthur [20:34]:** Jackbox*
> 
> **Gwen [20:35]:** it’s a game you play on your phone! it’s fun, promise. it’ll help you get drunk quicker. if you don’t want to play you can be in the audience x

Arthur stares at the kiss for a second too long. He’s knows it’s just a symbol of politeness, of signifying the ‘no hard feelings, don’t worry about being an asocial toff’ tone of her message. It’s practically punctuation at this point, or habit. Certainly not an indicator of romantic intent.

They’d attempted that. It was nice: it was warm and safe, and she left fresh flowers on his windowsills to make the apartment feel less clinical. Too bad he all but got _Camelot is more important than our relationship_ tattooed on his forehead, letting the flowers die in favour of an overbooked Outlook calendar.

Were Lance not one of his best friends, and Gwen not Morgana’s favourite of his ex-girlfriends, he wonders if they would still speak. More-so, were Gwen not a monumentally kind-hearted, generous and forgiving woman, would any of this ragtag bunch — a group so beautifully and easily _normal_ he feels supernaturally abnormal in their company — speak to him? Unlikely.

Yet, evidently, they do. And want to. And, after four months of not even bothering to make excuses, he knows it’s time to show his face at one of their blasted group calls. At the very least (Gwaine assured him), the era of the ‘virtual pub quiz’ had died out as quick as it came. The gatherings, now, serve only as a playground of copious drinking, coronavirus consolations and complaints about BoJo’s Britain.

 _So don’t invite our darling dad,_ Morgana had added, _you know he’s bosom buddies with the bastard._

> **Arthur [20:37]:** On my way. Had to clean the dishes.

Struck by doubt, Arthur sticks his hands through his hair and tussles it loose so that a few choice strands fall onto his brow. He undoes his top button, and the one beneath, and carries his MacBook to the living room where his sofa is bland enough to pass as IKEA.

There’s a two-minute stint in the call’s waiting room where he feels an invisible hand clench around his throat and squeeze his lungs to his stomach before he’s catapulted mid-way into a conversation about sex outside.

“Same as sex inside,” Gwaine says, “except you’ve got a better story to tell.”

“Ah, yes,” Morgana intervenes, “because what other reason is there to have sex, if not to get a good story from it?”

Morgana. His sister. Estranged, allegedly, though they seem to see each other more often now than when they shared the same penthouse. She looks at ease with their friends, despite being worlds apart. It’s only been a year since Morgana had whistled fuckity-bye to their father, abandoned the family name alongside its business privileges, and started working at an organic food-store in Shoreditch.

Her hair looks purposely matted – perhaps braided – and her eyeliner is just-shy of a Tim Burton character but, when she smiles, she’s as far from gothic-horror as a puppy parade. He begins to scrutinise her surroundings. There’s mould in the corner of her wall, and her curtains are a horrid shade of faded green. Every imperfection is a far-cry from their pampered adolescence, so why does she laugh so _freely_ at Gwaine’s effortless response? His heart aches to wonder. Perhaps she’s richer than he and his father combined.

“Arthur!” someone shouts, and then more and more people begin to register his attendance with an exclamative.

Lance and Gwen are sharing a webcam, cosied up on the sofa with a host of well-tended plants surrounding them.

Gwaine is shirtless – meaning he could be naked as far as Arthur can see – sat at his desk in a badly-lit bedroom, clothes and bed linen dotted around the floor. 

Percy and Elyan are grinning ear-to-ear, midway through a virtual clink of their beer cans. They’ve gone for quantity over quality – if the stack of Buds behind Percy is anything to go by – whereas Leon is sipping an arty IPA with skulls and scorch marks scattered across on the label. The three of them had offered Arthur their spare room when the reality of the pandemic had hit, but he’d declined. Arthur lives alone. With his refined way of doing things, it’s a necessary evil. A small part – growing larger by the day – regrets that decision.

Lastly, Arthur’s eyes fall on a stranger. They’re drowning in an oversized cardigan, cross-legged on their bed, attempting to knit without looking at the wool. From the looks of their creation, a glance wouldn’t go amiss.

“Arthur!” the stranger says, donning a smile that makes Arthur’s skin itch, “good to see you, mate.”

The caption beneath their webcam spells Merlin, their face spells mischief.

“Don’t tease him, it’s his first time here!” Gwen says. Her cheeks are reddened with wine, and she leans forward to speak into the microphone despite it picking her up fine moments before. “Arthur, this is _MERLIN._ He’s a friend of mine and _GWAINE’S._ We met at the _O2 ACADEMY_ at _UNI_.”

Elyan says “we can hear you fine, Gwen” the same moment that Morgana says, “you’re doing amazing, sweetie.”

“Great, fine,” Arthur says. It may sound dismissive, but he’s overwhelmed and unsure why this _Merlin_ is welcome at their weekly world’s-end social. Arthur may have let his seat get cold, but it was no invitation for a game of musical chairs.

“Arthur!” Gwaine shouts, and Arthur is growing incredibly bored of hearing his own name echoed across the call, “what do _you_ think of sex outside? Wasn’t it just outside your Union bar that you-”

“Thank you, _Gwaine,”_ Arthur says. Morgana audibly gags and Gwen – who was present at the event but who must be immune to mockery – giggles.

“Yes, thank you, Gwaine,” Morgana says, “I don’t need to know the whereabouts of my brother’s endeavours.”

“Is that how posh people pronounce underwear?”

“Do you people _wear_ underwear?” Morgana retorts, slipping into her role of pompous princess with a heavy sense of irony.

Arthur prays inwardly, lifting a tumbler of whiskey to his lips to disguise his grimace, that the sexual tension between his sister and good friend is a product of the pandemic, not a serious possibility.

“Get a room!” _Merlin_ says, burrowing into Arthur’s head as well as his seat at the party. The man is still grinning, dimples as big as his ears, and Arthur finds his eyes instinctively flicking to Merlin’s corner of the screen.

“Yeah, let’s stop talking about sex and underwear,” Percy says, “most of us are stuck inside with no access to either.”

“No access to underwear? What happens in that flat of yours?” Lance says, voice smooth and gentle. Bastard. Or best mate. One of them.

Percy blushes and says, “you know what I mean! Other people’s underwear!”

“And, on that note,” Lance intervenes, “ _Quiplash_.”

The games begin. Arthur sits comfortably last place at every interval; from the trivia games that Leon dominates, to the witty caption contests where Merlin takes the crown. For the first few rounds, Arthur is shamefaced by his performance, but after five ‘loser’s shots,’ he begins taking chances on riskier answers. Direct hits.

Midway through the night, he calls Merlin a _Poor Man’s Sue Perkins_ and – two rounds later – Merlin (sharp cheekbones, eyes bright enough to conquer the poor pixilation of his webcam) dons Arthur a _Poor Man’s Mel Giedroyc._

Arthur tells him to stop knitting, Grandma, and think up an original answer. Merlin says he’d rather be an old woman than a Spurs supporter and is swiftly forced to hold his hands up and admit that he knows nothing about football, bar the ammunition Gwaine provided before Arthur’s arrival.

Typical. Merlin’s prepared. He knows things about Arthur. He’s been told things by _Arthur’s_ mates, which is wholly unfair. Arthur’s never heard of the prat, and he’s quite sure that Merlin would be a name he’d remember.

Perhaps Gwen or Gwaine had mentioned him, in one of those conversations that Arthur let get away from him, head flooded with stock predictions and paternal expectations.

Perhaps he’d met him before, but – no. No, he would remember that face. That perpetual shit-eating smile; the obnoxious expression he wears when he knows he’s right; his endearing head-tilt when in thought, revealing a long, long neck. Too long, maybe. All of him. Thin and spindly and wrapped up in his knitting like a caterpillar getting ready for metamorphosis.

People start dropping from the call the moment that Gwen falls asleep sitting up. The rest of the call watch as Lance drapes a blanket across her shoulders, presses a kiss to her forehead, and declares he’s passing the call ownership to Merlin.

“They’re sweet, aren’t they? Gwen and Lance,” Merlin says. Arthur looks up, expecting to see a sea of awkward faces, when he realises that they’re the only two left. It’s been a long time since he’s been alone with a stranger.

“I don’t know, Merlin,” Arthur says, “is it girl-talk hours? Should I get on my nightdress and slippers?”

“Pardon for attempting conversation, your liege!” Merlin shoots back. With his camera taking up the whole screen, Arthur can see his eyes crinkle in amusement, “but, please, go ahead.”

“I’m sure you’d love that.”

“Perhaps,” Merlin says. The knitting’s been discarded, long fingers now wrapped around half-empty bottle of cheap white wine. “I mean it, though. From the stories I heard, her ex sounded like a right nob.”

Arthur looks up. He doesn’t say a word, just watches Merlin’s expression change from easy teasing to dawning dread.

“Oh,” he says.

“Mm-hmm,” Arthur says.

“ _Oh.”_

“Yes, Merlin.”

“It’s just!” he splutters, “well, you don’t really look like the sort of guy Gwen would go for, you know? Not that you’re not fit. You’re very fit. And I’m sure that you’re a great guy. You know how people just need a vent after a breakup? So, you’re probably not a nob at all. Did I call you a nob? Or a tosser? Either way, you seem great. A top-notch guy. And Gwen thinks so, too.”

“You’re babbling, Merlin,” Arthur says. He’s not terribly hurt. He was both a nob and a tosser during that year, and it’s no surprise that Gwen shared her grievances with a separate party. She deserved the opportunity to tear Arthur to shreds.

“Yeah, that would be because I’m super, super embarrassed.”

“With good reason.”

“With good reason. Do you want to play a drinking game?”

“To forget?” Arthur says.

“To forgive and forget.”

“There’s only two of us left.”

Merlin sticks his tongue out and blows a raspberry, looking otherwise unbothered.

“The perfect number for a good pace, I think.”

“It’s nearly two-am.”

“And what have you got on tomorrow, in this pandemic, in this economy?”

Tomorrow’s a Sunday, and Arthur feels oddly ashamed to admit that he had plans to finalise his diary for the week ahead, sending out invites for the upcoming meetings and reviewing last week’s minutes. It all sounds so _old,_ so _lifeless._ What are Merlin’s plans, he ponders. Sleeping until midday, ordering a curry, watching shit TV with his housemates? Why, for the first time in Arthur’s life, does that sound like bliss?

“Fine,” he says, “go ahead. Pick a game.”

“Never have I ever,” Merlin sing-songs, letting the words fall from his lips slow and sweet as honey. Arthur feels his gut clench and his cheeks redden. This is a game for adolescents, a chance to show off and share secrets, to get drunk and stupid as quick as possible.

"Never have I ever,” he repeats, relishing in the power, “voted Tory.”

Fuck. He's smiling, always smiling, and Arthur doesn't want to see it go. But it will, he knows, when he takes one very reluctant, very shameful swig.

"I knew it!" Merlin says, "something had to be wrong with you."

"What does that mean?" Arthur says, defensively. He has many faults, thank you very much. Too many.

"Well, you're handsome, charming, funny – though I don't know if that's on purpose or if it's just a side effect of being a comically pompous arse. I'm glad you're not entirely perfect but, man, a Tory of all things. That’s a deal breaker.”

_What deal?_

"I am not a Tory," Arthur says. Sure, it’s a running joke between his mates, fuelled by Morgana's stories of his picky taste in restaurants and poor relationship with pop culture. They know well enough, though, that Arthur's political persuasion is the reason Uther's delayed his promotion for the last three years. "I was eighteen. I let my father influence my vote. I thought he was always right. As it turns out, he wasn't. Very rarely is, actually."

"You're reformed?"

"Reincarnated."

"Right," Merlin says. He shakes his head, lips twitching. "So, what is wrong with you?"

"Many things," Arthur says, "largely to do with the aforementioned father, but some I grew all on my own."

"Maybe you can show me these faults sometime."

"Maybe I will," Arthur says. He stares into his glass, unsure why he's smiling when they're talking about his daddy issues, of all things. "Now, my question."

Everything feels a bit too easy with this Merlin character; tongues too loose, laughs too easy.

“Never have I ever," he soaks in the moment, too, feeling petty, "sent a nude." 

Merlin splutters, then blushes, then drinks. With that, the game continues.


End file.
